What the Sunday papers say - June 24
Sunday Business
Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries is likely to say that a £453m hostile bid from rival Pubmaster is neither "serious nor adequate" when it publishes its defence document early this week. It will insist that sector valuations have risen significantly since the possibility of a bid for the brewer emerged last August.
Whitbread is offering a £5,000 reward for anyone who can identify fresh sites for its Pizza Hut restaurants. The chain wants to expand from 420 outlets to 700 over the next five years.
Independent on Sunday
Sky is this week expected to secure two key deals for the rights to broadcast British Premier League football. It is understood that it is days away from renewing its £1.1bn contract with the Premier League to broadcast football on Sunday afternoons and Monday evenings. The Sky Sports channel will broadcast live a total of 66 football matches each season.
Market analysts at bank HSBC have tried to work out the mathematical likelihood of getting off with a stranger in a nightclub because consumer confidence in the ability to "pull" is one of the driving factors in the clubbing industry's success. The more you fancy your chances, apparently, the more you are likely to go out on the town and spend. The report is meant to advise HSBC staff and customers whether to invest in Luminar. If the number of single people in the country goes up by 10 per cent then the propensity to pull will rise, "but probably by less than 10 per cent". Fewer people go to nightclubs now than they did five years ago, and they spend less per head. The report suggests clubs and bars will make money if they provide safe, stimulating places for people to meet each other and flirt.
Luminar has signed a deal which could see "pure filtered oxygen" sold from vending machines at nightspots across the UK by the end of the year. It has installed its first device, at the £2.5m Here and Now nightclub in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and business is so good that it plans to introduce the machines in more of its 260 venues.
Shares in bar group Chorion are recommended as ones to buy.
Burtonwood Brewery's strategy is praised as "small is beautiful".
The Sunday Times
Designers of children's equipment are developing new "extreme" playgrounds amid fears that youngsters have lost their sense of danger. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents admitted last week that British Standards may have gone too far towards ruining children's fun and that some local authorities were "ultra-conservative". Many play areas have become little more than padded gardens. Seesaws have been removed in some because they contravene European Union rules if they hit the ground. Slides seldom rise more than a few feet above the ground. Manufacturers have discovered that older children want more complex structures such as a maze, nets and "huddle areas" where they can talk. The biggest-selling structures are American-style multi-sport systems, which include basketball nets and pull-up bars.
Hotels and restaurants are refusing to accept bookings from all-female parties following claims that the drunken antics of women are wreaking havoc. Some establishments have enforced a blanket ban on hen-night celebrations while still allowing in all-male parties. Others have drawn up guidelines to prevent women from going off the rails. Belgo Centraal in London's West End has banned hen nights after a dozen drunken revellers crossed the boundaries of decency by mimicking sex acts.
The Observer
Property tycoon Nick Leslau is about to buy a £100m shopping arcade surrounding Kensington High Street station from MEPC after he quit pub and restaurant group Hartford.
Sunday Telegraph
More than 3.3 million cigarettes were seized in a customs raid at an industrial estate in Ipswich after they were smuggled from Sweden via Harwich.
Julia Llewellyn Smith examines the rising problem of female drunkenness after a report revealed that hangovers cost British industry £2bn a year. Female customers in City bars such as Corney and Barrow and Pitcher & Piano talk about their exploits. It partly blames the growth of female-friendly bars such as All Bar One and marketing of Tia Maria and Baileys at women.
Hilton Group is preparing to sell a controlling stake in its health and fitness clubs LivingWell after receiving a number of takeover approaches for the business.
Sunday Express
Shepherd Neame, JD Wetherspoon, Luminar and the Independent Family Brewers of Britain celebrate the shelving of the licensing reform bill, while others such as Scottish & Newcastle, Bass and the Brewers and Licensed Retailers Association, express anger.
Columnist Virginia Blackburn claims "the country is in the grip of an alcohol-related epidemic, and it looks set to get worse". The Government has promised to overhaul licensing laws to allow many pubs and bars to serve alcohol 24 hours a day and, although it wasn't in the Queen's speech, it will happen. Camden council has also teamed up with brewers to supply cut-price drinks to alcoholics. "With no wars to fight, there's a real sense of nihilism in the air."
The Met Office has invested £500,000 in a joint venture with Umbrella Brokers to set up an online portal offering weather derivatives to protect companies from poor weather.
Cadbury-Schweppes aims for a bigger hold on the international market after buying Orangina.
The Mail on Sunday
Consolidation and casualties are expected in the coffee bar market. McDonald's is said to have decided to close its 36-strong Aroma chain and Coffee Republic has undergone a management shake-up, but it is estimated that the branded coffee chain market is growing at 22 per cent and is on course to grow from 1,328 outlets to 2,400 by 2003.
Scotland on Sunday
No industry-related news.
